Describe something you did that was new or exciting.

[You will have to talk about the topic for one to two minutes. You have one minute to think about what you're going to say. You can make some notes to help you if you wish.]

Model Answer 1:

Bushwalking (formally known as hiking) is a great source of day-long entertainment. When travellers start walking through the stretched landscapes, they feel a different sort of feeling inside. Moreover, hiking is a good way to explore any specific geographical location which is not possible through other travelling modes.

Last summer, I went hiking in the Stirling Range for a hike with some of my friends. It was one of the most exciting events in my life and fortunately, my parents allowed me to move with my friends without imposing any obligations. We walked all the day long and stayed the night at the peak. The views were breathtaking.

Before the summer began in Australia, we six friends decided to go for a trip to Perth and undertake the hiking beginning from the Stirling Mountain range to its peak. We had to walk and climb together to reach the summit and finally, we succeeded to ride on the top. It was the daytime and thus the sun was too bright to look forward and amid the situation, we had to drive about 200 miles to reach the hiking and climbing trail of Stirling Range.

Five of my school friends and I went to the trip and to make it memorable, we went all by us. We requested our parents to allow us to go without the help of them. As we were growing up teenage boys, they did allow us and this was the most exciting part of our trip. We all prepared well, reached the spot in time and returned home safely too after the bush-walk.

This trip was exciting for me and a fresh experience as I never took part in such trips. The most important thing is that I packed all my necessary stuff at the night before we start the trip. My parents gave me a few advice that proved effective when applied, particularly walking under the sun at daytime during the walk. I enjoyed the trip as the views were breathtaking and the roads were smooth. But I had to face little troubles during the mountain climbing. My hands started sweating and thus slipped several times when I was climbing the mountain.

The views from the mountaintop are spectacular and I had also seen the ocean lying in a long distance using my binocular. There were wildflowers all around the walking tracks and smelt pleasant, and the smells turned more attractive at night when we camped at a camping cave located by the side of a road. We returned from the walking on the next day and followed the directions given to return to the city.

Alternative Answer 2: Recently I opened a WordPress blog and started writing blog posts and this is the first time I own a blog. This is not only a new activity for me but also very thrilling.

I am a regular internet user and I read numerous blogs quite often. But owning one is something which happened to me very recently. Earlier last month I opened a blog from wordpress.com and the blog address comprises my name and then .com. So far I have written 20+ posts and they are getting more than 200 traffics each day. I always wanted to own a blog and write things that would let me continue my writing habit as well as help others who are searching for the same thing I am listing down. For instance, one particular post which is getting much attention and comments from the users is regarding the best places and activities for the tourists in my hometown.

I opened the blog from my home computer and after few hours continuous effort, I gave it a nice design. WordPress is the most popular blogging platform nowadays and it makes the content management and maintaining of the blog quite easily. After finishing the initial design, now I focus on writing new posts. I opened this blog to add posts that will work as a reference for me as well as help other searchers. For instance, I have visited almost all of the major tourist attractions in my hometown and I know them quite well. So listing down the major tourist attractions with some of the pictures and descriptions would help others who are planning to visit my hometown as tourists.

After opening the blog, I informed few of my very close friends who visited it and gave positive feedback. I also shared this blog on my Facebook, Twitter and Google+ profiles where all of my social connections were notified about this blog. I made Mark, one of my very close friends, an administrator of this blog so that he can also write his posts and help maintain this blog.

Opening a blog that would be popular among people of different countries was a dream for me. I am yet to go a long way but the starting is done and that’s very exciting for me. I have integrated the most popular statistics tool which is 'Google Analytics' and it gives many insights of the blog including the per day visitors, posts where visitors spend time, live visitor count, where the visitors are coming from, their visit duration and many other aspects of the blog. Creating something new that grabs people’s attention and help them is always exciting and motivating. Looking at the blog and statistics is something that gives me the inspiration to continue to write and write great posts to help others. The whole thing is quite exhilarating and I am sure I will continue it for a long time.

Part 3: Detail Discussion:

Doing new things

Q. Why do you think some people like doing new things? A.Performing a new task has a different sort of pleasure regardless of mistakes or perfection. Thus, some people prefer performing newer things to taste the unknown pleasure. It is quite natural to know the unknowns and based on curiosity humans are performing new things and thus has invented numerous elements to be used for their comforts. Doing new things is like an addiction for some people and accordingly, they invent newer ways to live better.

Q. What problems can people have when they try new activities for the first time?A.When it is the first time for something new, there may be different troubles. People might not come up with the changed situations or behaviours or the presence of something unwanted. The changes or the new things at the beginning may seem inappropriate or wrong and may also experience negative criticisms. It also may happen that the community is opposing to start or continue the new practice as they have never done that before or they are not instructed to execute things in that way. So, before you start or practice something unconventional or new, you should think about the issues. If someone wants to bring a change through the new activities for the first time, the negative criticisms should be accepted in a cool manner.

Q. Do you think it’s best to do new things on your own or with other people? Why? A.I think it is the best idea to do or practice the new things on one’s own before making it public. The thing could be made public when it is in a perfect condition or may prove helpful to others or the community. If there are drawbacks with the new issue, it is imperative not to practice in public or you might be insulted. Most of the cases, people who try new things lack the tolerance limit of absorbing the negative remarks over the issue and consequently a complex situation is created. Therefore, I believe that the new things should be exercised privately before announcing them in public. If there are troubles with the issue, it may be discussed with few intimate mates to resolve the drawbacks but not in public, remember – not in public before the drawbacks are solved perfectly.

Learning new things:

Q. What kinds of things do children learn to do when they are very young? How important are these things? A.Usually, the children try to imitate the attitudes and behaviours when they are very. The things are highly important for them and even their parents too. They try to imitate the walking styles, eating styles, speeches, talking methods, reading books and handwriting and more other issues. But the most important thing is the way they behave is exactly copied from their parents. It is the representation of the behaviour they get from their parents at home. If the parents behave well, the kids will learn that and if the behaves are rude, they will be rude to others too. They love to copy the adults and thus the adults should be careful over the issue.

Q. Do you think children and adults learn to do new things in the same way? How is their learning style different?A.The learning methods for the children and the adults are not the same. Usually, the children learn from their surrounding environment while the adults mostly learn from trial and error basis. Sometimes, they try to perform something different from others and thus they learn the newer things. Since the kids do have such options to try and make errors to learn something and they also lack maturity like the adults, simply they copy the attitudes they see performance by the adults. So, the learning styles are not similar because of experience and exercising scopes.

Q. Some people say that it is more important to be able to learn new things now than it was in the past. Do you agree or disagree with that? Why?A.Currently, there are lots of changes are happening in the world. As a result, the alternatives are increasing and people could learn more things which were previously unfamiliar to them. With the advancement of science, many unfamiliar things have been discovered and the chances to gain knowledge over the issues have also increased simultaneously. Earlier, people were not that much smart and intelligent as they are now and the possibilities to experiment something newer were less than the present days. So, people did not learn well in the past and with the advancement of time and technology, knowledge gathering and sharing has been made easier. Therefore, newer things are easy to learn in the current days than before.